As earlier in The Rat Trap, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of India's finest directors, takes yet another look at the process of social change in India, with its inevitable ethical implications, this time in the sphere of politics. Set against the background of the history of the Communist Party in Kerala, in the 50s and the 60s, it brings into a deeply moving confrontation a man and his image,an ideal and its decadence, a slowly degenerating older generation and a rebellious new generation. Gopalakrishnan describes his work as a study of the revolutionary spirit, that 'lives' in every individual, even as it is continually affected by time.